Writers of romantic songs may tell us that women are complicated beings, but if you want to hear how complicated women are, try talking to a reproductive endocrinologist. Associate Professor John Evans has spent the past three decades looking at the female reproductive system, from the early stirrings of ovulation through to determining the […]

In June this year I attended the “International Dialogue on Responsible Research and Development of Nanotechnology” in Alexandria, Virginia. This one and a half day meeting was sponsored and convened by Dr Mihail (Mike) Roco, Senior Advisor on Nanotechnology for the National Science Foundation, and Chairman of the Subcommittee on Nanoscale Science, Engineering and […]

Four MacDiarmid Institute Principal Investigators have been recipients of major prizes in the last six months, three receiving awards from the Royal Society of New Zealand, and one from the Groupement Ampere, a European Society for Magnetism and Magnetic Resonance. The Royal Society of New Zealand inaugural Pickering Medal was awarded, in November 2004, to Dr Bob Buckley of Industrial Research Limited. The Pickering Medal was established by the Royal Society of New Zealand in 2003 […]

Eighty budding scientists and technologists from the lower North Island got an insight into different areas of tertiary science at the 3 day Rotary sponsored “2004 Vic Science Experience” held in the last week of school holidays. Forty of the pupils were current or past mentees of the Awhina Outreach mentoring programme sponsored by the […]

Since electricity was first discovered, all electronic devices have functioned using the same basic principle – the fact that electrons carry a negative charge. But now, research in the new and exciting field of spintronics may mean that electrons are soon used in a totally new way, leading to a ‘quantum leap’ in the way electronic devices are designed. […]

When the AMN-2 conference opens on 06 February 2004, those attending will no doubt be circling one particular event on their programmes – an Invited Talk by one of the most prominent leaders in the field of nanofabrication technology, Professor Henry (Hank) Smith. A member of the International Advisory Board of the MacDiarmid Institute, Hank’s talk is titled […]

They say “nothing is perfect” but, as with any rule, there are always exceptions! Superconductors are the world’s only perfect conductors of electricity, a phenomenon which means they have great potential for use in a wide variety of applications. But despite being discovered nearly 100 years ago, a number of mysteries still surround them. Now Dr […]

For a long time, chemists thought carbon was one of the best known elements. It is the linchpin of organic chemistry, and even school children learn that sooty graphite and shiny diamonds are both made up of carbon. So from a scientist’s perspective there was nothing new to be found. Until the discovery of buckyballs, […]

Paul has handed me the task of writing the editorial for this, the fifth issue of the MacDiarmid Interface. I’m very pleased to be able to do this, as it gives me a chance to reflect on the changes that have occurred for many of us, both professionally and personally, over the first three […]

The MacDiarmid Institute is pleased to be associated with the E=mc2 website which is part of New Zealand’s celebration of the 2005 World Year of Physics – it will be launched in mid-February 2005 and be developed continuously throughout the year. The website is designed to support and enhance the learning of Physics in New Zealand […]

Imagine running a commercial venture with $441 million in assets, revenue of $170 million in the last financial year and a shareholder equity growth of 10.2% per year over the past five years, with additional dividends of $71 million. And your brief as CEO is to keep your eye on what your organisation will be doing a century […]

2004 saw MacDiarmid Institute researchers involved in organising a highly successful satellite symposium to ICSM04, the 2004 International Conference on The Science and Technology of Synthetic Metals. The symposium “ New Materials for Energy Conversion and Storage” was held in June at the Millennium Hotel in Queenstown with international speakers including Alan MacDiarmid (University of Pennsylvania), Arthur Epstein (Ohio State University) […]

Longer lasting, better performing batteries that can be recharged more frequently than those currently in use are about to become a reality thanks to the persistence of two electrochemists at Massey University. Dr Simon Hall, a chemist at the MacDiarmid Institute, and his former student Dr Michael Liu are among a small group of only about […]

Imagine sitting at your breakfast table in the morning and browsing the latest news as you download it to your electronic newspaper from news agencies throughout the world. You store the stories you want to keep and delete the rest – and all you need is a bit of organic electronics. Electronic newspapers may still be a distant […]

Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) works by placing a sample into a magnetic field, causing the atom nuclei to oscillate at a particular frequency. Firing a radio wave into the atom in resonance with those oscillations, results in a delicate returning wave which contains detailed information about the material properties. NMR works particularly well with compounds that contain hydrogen atoms (such […]